CTEL

Test-Taking Tip

February 8, 2010
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As my loyal readers may remember, I passed the dreaded CTEL test last June. Having a CLAD certificate (which passing the CTEL gives you) is the only way to remain employed as a teacher in California, and a lot of teachers are going through a lot of stress these days as the deadline for passing looms. The pe and math teachers at our site have been particularly stressed about it. Several didn’t pass the first section (the one with all the lingo and language acquisition theory) the first time, and were really worried about the retake in December. Some of them asked for advice on passing. “You’re an English teacher; you know what a morpheme and a phoneme are, and you’re used to writing essays and stuff (there are three “open ended response” essays over the course of the three sections). No wonder you didn’t have any problem.” My tips for them came down to four things. “You can game this test, especially the essays. This is the kind of thing where the test writers have a party line, an ideology. They want to hear their own words back. “One. Read the book. Focus especially on the vocabulary and the little scenarios that

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Friday Follow-Ups

October 3, 2009
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Just some follow-up on some things I noticed I’ve left hanging. *Still haven’t heard from the DA about my possible vandalism charge. Wait…I never finished that story, did I?  (Here’s the beginning of the story.) After the cop came to the school and didn’t get to talk to me, he came to my house the next day, Saturday. I get attitude from the git-go. He says the guy who almost ironed me wants to have me charged with vandalism for making a dent in the side of his truck with my wristguards. Lucky it wasn’t my head, and you’re interviewing me in a hospital bed. Vandalism is a misdemeanor. I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation. But the bottom line seemed to be that, with no witnesses except those involved, he had a he said/he said sort of thing on his hands, and was trying to get me to crack and confess. When he left he said he would write up his report, and then the DA’s office would decide whether there was a case or not. Great. The statute of limitations on charging me is two years. The incident was in February. Supposedly, according

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Mailbag: The Holy Trinity

July 24, 2009
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Sr. Enda (my seventh grade teacher) would be appalled that I used the title phrase outside the context of the  Catholic Church. But in my seventh grade language arts classroom, my Holy Trinity consists of Father Vocabulary, Son KBAR (reading/writing), and the Holy Spirit of grammar/mechanics. (My ninth grade English teacher referred to the last as the Great Grammarian in the Sky.) Okay that’s a bit of a metaphor stretch, as I squeeze 5 things into 3, but I think you get the idea. A language arts curriculum can seem like it has a million things in it, and the task of trying to integrate them all so they somehow fit together seems daunting. And it’s not like we English teachers have a rigid sequence of skills/concepts that have to be taught in a certain order. I mean we do, sort of, but there’s a lot of overlap and repetition, and it’s not like  in math, where (the math teachers insist) you have to learn x before you can learn y and so on. In fact, most English teachers bridle under any outside attempt to sequence their curriculum. But this freedom can be a bit intimidating: What goes first? What

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CKD

July 22, 2009
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Yesterday morning I woke up to the following message written on the bathroom mirror: “Crush, kill, destroy – in his sleep.” Now let’s all date ourselves, and try to remember where we have heard the phrase “crush, kill, destroy” before. No cheating by Googling (or Binging – but that sounds loud). I’ll give you a minute. My wife says she wrote that on the mirror to make sure she remembered what I said when I was talking in my sleep. I have known since I was a kid, that though I don’t dream very often, when I do I usually talk about it in my sleep. Three younger brothers will let you know right quick. Anyway, all I remember dreaming about was a reenactment of my CTEL testing experience, with the lady asking me what was in my clear container (green tea). “Beer. I thought I might need a cold one while I was testing.” I remember the guy next to me laughing, and the lady making a funny look and setting my bottle on the back counter, but I don’t remember saying, “Crush, kill, destroy.” I hope this isn’t a sign; the results of the test are released Sunday

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CTEL in SF Part III

July 3, 2009
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(Ok. I’m lagging. It IS summer after all. But I told myself I’d try to  stay in the groove for the summer, and post (kinda) regularly; there are people who teach on a different schedule, and right now aren’t able to  go camping for a week at beautiful Refugio Beach. And they might like some new material now and then. Though if we don’t stop the Terminator from closing our state parks, nobody will be camping anywhere.) Anyway, my last post left me holed up at the Holiday Inn in San Francisco, the day after the last day of school, studying for the CTEL. Early Saturday morning, I got to the test site at beautiful Mission High School and snaked a beauty off-street (free) parking spot. I was there an hour before reporting time, so I ate my muffin, drank my green iced tea from my clear plastic jug (no labels; could be used for cheating), and hung out in the cafeteria where they herded all of us after checking for cell phones and “any device with an on/off switch.” I half-read the misspelled posters touting the nutrition and energy that come from eating vegetables in season, grooved on the

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Random Featured Post

Three-Word Phrases

Seventh graders “communicate” mostly in three-word phrases. If the phrase isn’t really only three words long, they can usually pare it down. “What’d I miss?” It sounds like  “Wuddeyemiss.” And it always comes right as you’re starting class. Raise your hand if you have had this happen in the past week. Past three days? Today? AAAAAARGH.  They want 54 stellar, well-planned and executed minutes of instruction summarized for them in 30 seconds as the class bustles in.  What did you miss? “Absolutely nothing. You might as well take the rest of the year off. CHECK THE WEB PAGE! COME BACK AT BREAK!” “Oh yeah. I forgot.” LOL (These days, they’re getting it down to three-letter phrases.) “What’s my grade?” This one is usually from the kid whose grade is in the bottom 15% , and s/he finally turned something in, and wants immediate gratification. And it always happens right in the middle of something else, something totally unrelated.  Yesterday we were talking about how Charlotte is finally seeing Captain Jaggery for what he really is. (Aside: If you haven’t read The True Adventures of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, I highly recommend it. I picked it up a few years ago [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

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